Then again, time was a luxury he could afford for her, along with the three-million-dollar home and the $55,000 Mercedes station wagon she needed to cart the girls to and from private school, piano lessons, ballet, and the seemingly never-ending soccer practices.

The three-million-dollar (2.2 million euros) project would involve adopting technologies used in Asia, which produces the vast majority of the world's natural rubber, said Yo Tiemoko, head of the Ivory Coast's national agronomic research centre.